


Broken Pieces Form Imperfect Shapes

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Because That Is The Best Way To End Things, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everything Ends In A Cuddle Pile On The Floor, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Just A Whole Mess of Feelings, Trouble Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 15:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15270495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: The first town they came to after the Incident, blood on the grass, three people gone, four people left, nothing adding up, only taken away, Caleb orders a room for himself and Nott at the inn as he always does. It was what he was used to and Caleb desperately clung to the routine of it, because nothing was routine now, nothing was normal.Of course Caleb would want a room to himself. Caleb surely wouldn’t want Molly invading his space, Molly who talks to fill silences, to fill the empty places so he doesn’t have to hear himself think. It’s not like Molly doesn’t have the coin for his own room now, the silver clinking on the counter as bright as his grin, as the panic in his eyes.Beau doesn’t ask if anyone wants to room with her, because she knows better. Beau is made of rough edges that everyone else is probably tired of bumping up against and coming away bloody, metaphorically speaking. She’s never been anyone’s first choice, not since the day she was born, and she’s fine with that. Really.





	Broken Pieces Form Imperfect Shapes

The remaining members of the Mighty Nein had all started sharing a tent after Fjord and Jester and Yasha had disappeared, even though they had more than enough tents for everyone now. There were plenty of reasons why, perfectly logical reasons, of course. Why waste time and energy putting up three tents when one would do, safety in numbers, all that sort of thing, and Caleb could wind his silver thread easily around one tent with room to spare. It had nothing to do with being scared or lonely, the sudden vulnerability that had come with losing three of their members so suddenly. Of course not.

The first town they came to after the Incident, _blood on the grass, three people gone, four people left, nothing adding up, only taken away,_ Caleb orders a room for himself and Nott at the inn as he always does, as he always had done when he had the coin for it, back in the days after the asylum, after he had found Nott. It was what he was used to, and Caleb desperately clung to the routine of it, because nothing was routine now, nothing was normal. He has his back turned to Molly and doesn’t see the look on his face, the flicker of panic in his eyes, the way the tip of his tail twitches. He is only thinking of a quiet room and the much needed illusion of normalcy.

Molly smiles, a mask so well worn and comfortable that it almost felt real, almost felt true, and only the pounding of his heart and the twitching of his tail would have revealed it as a lie. Of course Caleb would want a room to himself. There’s no reason for them to stay together here for reasons of safety or otherwise. Caleb will have four walls and silver thread to keep him safe, not to mention a goblin with a crossbow and a hair trigger honed by paranoia. Molly knows that Caleb likes his quiet, likes being alone sometimes, that Nott being beside him constantly somehow doesn’t subtract from the alone. Caleb surely wouldn’t want Molly invading his space, Molly who talks to fill silences, to fill the empty places so he doesn’t have to hear himself think. It’s not like Molly doesn’t have the coin for his own room now, the silver clinking on the counter as bright as his grin, as the panic in his eyes.

Beau doesn’t ask if anyone wants to room with her, because she knows better. Beau is made of rough edges that everyone else is probably tired of bumping up against and coming away bloody, metaphorically speaking. She’s never been anyone’s first choice, not since the day she was born, and she’s fine with that. Really. She slams silver down onto the counter hard enough to hurt her hand and doesn’t wince, doesn’t look at Caleb or Molly or Nott. Nott would probably room with her if she asked, out of pity if nothing else, but Beau doesn’t want to ask, she wants to _be_ asked. She wants to be wanted. She’s not thinking about Jester as she stomps up the stairs to her room, not thinking about how Jester had pouted the one time Beau had thought about getting a room to herself, how Jester had never minded Beau’s rough edges, had never hurt herself on them. She doesn’t think about any of those things as she throws her stuff into the corner of the room. She doesn’t.

At dinner, Caleb automatically looks for two tables to push together, because seven people take up a lot of space. When he remembers there are only four of them now he falters in mid-step, as if the knowledge was a cat winding around his feet, tripping him up. He finds a table large enough for all of them and yet it still feels small, the presence of those that should be there but aren’t somehow taking up space, crowding him. The common room is too loud and every sound grates on Caleb’s nerves because they’re not the sounds he should be hearing. There is no Jester chattering with Molly and Nott. There is no Fjord next to Beau giving advice in his sweet as molasses drawl. There is no Yasha, whose listening silences were a part of every conversation, whose occasional quiet words or soft laughter were like the sound of a bell after it has been rung. Caleb doesn’t mind when Nott steals the meat from his plate and replaces it with her vegetables, he can barely eat for the noise of who isn’t there assaulting him. He’s the first to leave the table, Nott trailing behind with worry in her eyes and her fingers gripped tightly around her flask.

Molly’s on his third drink when Caleb leaves the table. He’s already finished his meal but he drags Caleb’s plate over and finishes that as well, because life with the carnival has taught him that you eat when you can and to be thankful for every scrap. He orders another drink when he’s finished and pulls out his cards, shuffles and draws four and pretends they’re not going to be the same four he drew the night before, or the night before that. He stares at them for a long time before shuffling again, drawing again, ordering another drink again. Destiny’s Wanderer, the Fortunate Fool, the Drowned Sailor, they all stare up at him accusingly as the last card settles over the three of them. Dark Tower Fallen, catastrophe and ruin, what was whole sundered and scattered. It’s nothing he doesn’t already know, hasn’t already known. He orders another drink.

Beau drinks a cup of wine and hates how she automatically compares it to the wine that came from her father’s vineyard. It’s inferior, of course it is, she would have hated it otherwise. She tells the barmaid to leave the bottle the next time she comes over with a drink for Molly, tips generously, smiles. The barmaid smiles back, and Beau grins wider when she leaves and turns to her right, where Fjord would be sitting, before she remembers and the smile falls from her face like Molly’s cards falling onto the table. Beau doesn’t bother with the cup after that, just kills the bottle and watches Molly shuffle his cards and pull the same four over and over again. Yasha believes Molly had some sort of gift, but Beau doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t be just sitting there uselessly shuffling his cards, he’d be finding their friends and she’d have her fists in someone’s face and they’d be _doing_ something instead of nothing, instead of sitting around and it’s _bullshit_ and she doesn’t realize she’s yelling all this until Molly looks up at her. She wants there to be anger in his eyes and instead he only looks wounded and that’s not right. He should yell at her, call her names, and she could yell back and everything would be _fine_. Instead there are red droplets on the table that are not spilled wine and her knuckles have splinters in them and she stomps up the stairs to her room before she punches that hurt expression off Molly’s face.

Caleb unwinds his silver thread around the room, muttering softly, including Nott and Molly and Beau and Frumpkin as those that can come and go, excluding everyone else. The spool of thread was so large when he bought it, now it has maybe enough for another week of warding before he’ll have to buy more. There are better spells, he knows, has heard and read about them in books and old scrolls, spells that will keep out the unwanted instead of just alerting Caleb to their presence. The first thing he did when they came to town was to go to the bookstore and the junk shop and look for books, both old or new, that might help him. He still wants to bend time and space to his will, that hasn’t changed, his focus has only shifted temporarily. He piles his new acquisitions on the bed and pours through them, looking for mentions of magical spaces, of protection, of safety. Knowledge is power and he needs it desperately, because if he had known more spells, different ones, everyone would be together now. None of the others have said it, not out loud, but Caleb hears it in their silences and inside his own heart, just another log on the bonfire of his guilt.

Molly doesn’t have any clear memories of being alone. His memories fresh from the grave had been more like a dream, something happening to someone else. By the time he had been himself, had been _Molly_ , there had been plenty of people around him. Space is at a premium when you work at a carnival, a luxury, and Molly had spent every night sleeping in a tent with several other people, or sleeping under the stars with several other people when the weather was good. And then he had left the carnival and spent his nights sleeping under the stars with other people, sharing rooms to save on coin, an excuse that probably would have worn thin after awhile. What was he supposed to say, that he had never slept alone before and he was afraid? He was pretty sure no one in this group would have laughed at him, but they might have pitied him and that would have been worse. He could have just flirted his way into a room with Caleb, but no. Pride and silver has bought him a room for one. He lays in bed and closes his eyes.

Beau stretches before bed, but the tension does not bleed from her muscles, her jaw does not unclench. She wants to fight someone or to scream (or to cry, but she won’t admit that, not even to herself) but she can’t do either, not unless she wants to get kicked out of the town’s only tavern, and it’s getting cold outside at night, really cold. She wonders if Jester and Yasha and Fjord are cold, if they are outside, if they’re sleeping or awake or even alive. She clenches her fists to make her knuckles sting, to drive away the things she doesn’t want to think about. When she finds out who took them, she’s going to start punching and not stop until her enemies are a paste on the ground to be washed away in the rain. Her smile is bitter as she climbs into bed and closes her eyes, but it’s the first smile she’s had in days and she savors the taste.

Caleb reads until Frumpkin meows and sits on the book that Caleb had been trying to read from. Frumpkin is fey but he is also a cat, and cats have opinions on when bedtimes are, and Caleb is long past his. Nott is already asleep near the foot of the bed, sprawled across Caleb’s feet, curled around Yasha’s book of pressed flowers and with her crossbow within easy reach. Nott’s been collecting flowers for days and pressing them between the pages, been trying to keep everyone’s spirits up by assuring them all that the three missing will be found and everything will be as it was. Caleb doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she is wrong, that things once broken can never go back to what they had been. They could still become something else, something useful, maybe something beautiful, Caleb thinks as he moves his books and notes off to one side, puts out the lamp and closes his eyes, but they could never just be the _same._

Molly can’t sleep. The inn has been silent for hours now, the room he’s in dark. He hadn’t thought to ask if his room had a view, it had never mattered before. He could light the bedside lamp but that wouldn’t make the room less quiet, less empty. He had hoped to be drunk enough to simply fall asleep, but no. He had never realized how quiet a room could be without someone else in it, even a sleeping someone. The carnival grounds had never been quiet, not even at night, people always getting up to something or other regardless of the hour. And Fjord had been a quiet sleeper, yes, but Molly hadn’t known how comforting just hearing another person breathe had been. He misses Fjord’s breathing and the smell of him, the faint smell of the sea. All Molly can hear is his own breathing in the dark, and he swears he smells fresh earth and tastes dirt on his tongue.

Beau can’t sleep. Before, when Beau couldn’t sleep, it was because Jester had still been awake, drawing pictures for the Traveler or talking about something that had happened that day or giggling with Beau about Fjord or telling her she should really just ask Yasha out and be done with it, they’d be so cute together. Beau had wondered if that was what having a sister would have been like, late nights staying up and telling stories and sharing secrets. She might have been a different person, if she had grown up having a sister, having a friend. She might not have ended up alone in the dark with stinging knuckles and bruised hands, listening for giggles that won’t come and quiet her too loud thoughts.

Caleb can’t sleep. That isn’t unusual, by itself. His mind is hard to quiet down at the end of the day, and his dreams are rarely good, rarely peaceful. Something is nagging at the corner of his mind and he rolls over, Frumpkin making a sound in protest, Nott shifting in her sleep. There is something off, something he has gotten used to, and his thoughts drift until they suddenly come into focus. He’s missing the scent of lavender, the way Molly would start the night in his bedroll and end up with some part of him draped over the wizard by morning. There isn’t the sound of Beau breathing heavily, of her shifting in her sleep and muttering as she fights imaginary foes. Caleb hadn’t realized that he had adjusted to their new sleeping arrangements on the road so quickly. He hadn’t realized that their closeness had been a comfort to him as much as Nott or Frumpkin was. Surely they do not feel the same though. Surely they are sleeping just fine without him.

Molly is in the common room using the banked fire to heat water for tea. It’s an excuse not to be in his room, where silence and darkness had weighed on his chest as heavily as the earth above him had, once. It’s just as easy to boil water for several cups of tea as it is for one, and that’s an excuse to go to Caleb’s room and offer him the tea that they had bought in the last town they had been to, the tea to help them sleep. Molly had bought that for everyone else, not for himself, at least that was what he had thought at the time. His gaze falls to the table they had eaten at earlier, and he thinks of drops of blood on the wood like spilled wine and when he goes back upstairs he stops in his room for a brief moment before he knocks on Beau’s door.

Beau swears as she lights the lamp and opens the door, sees Molly standing in the doorway, offering tea to help her sleep and salve for her hands. She opens her mouth to tell her she’s fine, she can take care of herself, has been taking care of herself since childhood, scrapes left to scar, splinters left to work their way out or further in. But she’s tired and angry and so tired of being angry, and when she calls him an asshole for waking her up there’s no strength behind her words. She knows he sees through the lie but he just makes a crack about beauty sleep and they bicker back and forth while Molly removes splinters of wood from her knuckles before they can work their way in deeper and fester. She wonders if this is what having a brother would have been like.

Caleb is halfway out of bed before the sound of knocking fades from the room, shimmering lights floating above him, Nott already on her feet with crossbow in hand. He’s still tense when he opens the door so that Molly and Beau can come in, but then they’re sitting on the floor together because the bed is too small and filled with books besides. They share tea and Beau asks about what Caleb’s been reading and Nott shows Molly the flowers she’s been collecting for Yasha and Caleb breathes deeply and smells lavender and feels his mind settle as he talks to Beauabout mansions conjured from magic and imagination and will.

Morning finds them all still on the floor in a mess of blankets and pillows. Beau’s sprawled with an arm flung over Nott, who’s curled up around Frumpkin in the space behind Caleb’s knees, while Molly is sleeping on his stomach, tail curled around one of Caleb’s legs. They form a shape, imperfect but together and, for the moment, at rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting a fic 15 minutes before the episode starts, as is traditional. 
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


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